'Renegade' controllers leave pilots flying blind: air chief

Tony Wright

A GROUP of "renegade" air traffic controllers in Melbourne and Brisbane are deliberately closing air space, leaving pilots to fend for themselves on some of the nation's busiest air routes, according to the head of the agency that manages Australia's skies.

The chief executive of Airservices Australia, Greg Russell, said it appeared a massive increase in incidents in which air space sectors had suddenly been left with no air traffic control was linked to an industrial campaign for big wage rises.

Mr Russell said he did not believe the campaign was authorised by the air traffic controllers' union, Civil Air, and he did not believe most controllers were part of it.

"I do think there are a small number of renegades who are involved in this activity," he said.

There were only seven incidents in which control of air space sectors had been interrupted in the 22 months between January 2006 and October 2007, rising to a whopping 135 in the eight months since, he said.

"There is an acknowledged shortage of air traffic controllers, there is no campaign and our people are sick of being harassed to work on their days off," Mr McGuane said.

In many of the incidents, air traffic controllers in Melbourne and Brisbane have suddenly declared themselves sick and when their colleagues have been contacted in an effort to find replacements, no one has been available.

Air traffic controllers won the right to unlimited sick leave in the 1990s and are required to give only two hours' notice of their unavailability to work. The rate of absenteeism among air traffic controllers is an average of more than 15 days a year - about three times the national average.

The federal Minister for Transport, Anthony Albanese, also made plain this week he was convinced the rate of uncontrolled air space was linked to the air traffic controllers' industrial campaign.

"It is a fact that Civil Air, the air traffic control union, is engaged in industrial negotiation at the moment over a wages agreement," Mr Albanese told Brisbane radio 4BC. "At the same time, there appears to be a situation whereby you've had a number of people not turning up for work in order to create a situation which causes some difficulty."

Many industry figures point to an anonymous blog circulated on the internet last November - just as the incidence of uncontrolled air space shot from one to 21 occurrences in a month - that exhorted air traffic controllers to refuse to relieve colleagues who had reported sick.

The blog said the Government would only react to public pressure and media interest, which would only be gained when airline schedules were disrupted or air space was closed.

"Turn off your phone; don't answer unknown phone numbers; if you are contacted advise you have a 'family commitment', 'have had a drink', are 'too tired' or simply 'unavailable'," the blog advised.

Mr Russell has refused until now to criticise air traffic controllers or to link their industrial campaign to the spike in uncontrolled sectors.

However, the controllers' certified industrial agreement expires on December 21 and while their union has not yet made a formal log of claims, it has issued a "vision statement" that calls for pay rises ranging from about 30% to 64%.

Mr Russell said such figures were clearly not realistic when Qantas long-haul pilots had received a 3% rise, private sector wage outcomes were about 3.8% and the public sector was receiving rises of about 4.2%.

He also pointed to the cost to airlines, which pay Airservices Australia to manage the skies on behalf of the Federal Government.

Most Australian domestic airlines refuse to fly through uncontrolled air space, meaning that at a time when fuel costs are cutting deeply into profits, the requirement to fly around black areas causes immense financial pain.

A regular passenger jet such as a Boeing 737 flying from Melbourne to Sydney requires an extra two tonnes of aviation fuel to fly around what is known as the Canberra sector if it is closed - a broad area between Canberra and Sydney's southern suburbs. With aviation fuel at $1.90 a litre, this equates to an extra $3800 for the journey.

Many international airlines flying in to Australia from Asia have had no choice but to fly through uncontrolled space because they were already in the air when control closed down.

In one incident last month, the entire northern approach to Australia from Queensland to Darwin was uncontrolled after three air traffic controllers in Brisbane called in sick. Fourteen of their colleagues were called in an effort to find replacements, but all were unavailable or uncontactable. The result was that dozens of airliners carrying thousands of passengers had to rely on pilots advising each other of their positions with no assistance from the ground.

Despite claims by the union that the problem was caused by a big shortage of controllers, the figures provided by Airservices Australia show the average number of controllers has not changed significantly over the past three years.

The union claims the system is 100 controllers short. Mr Russell concedes a shortage of 17, but believes the problem will be overcome within a month.